Reading Hayden White with Michel Foucault

Genalogy, Narrative and the Aestheticization of History

Abstract

     In the 1980s, following the rise of postmodernism, ideas about the subjectivity of history began to emerge. Central to this idea of history is the defense of plurality against reductive attitudes and the idea that history is more connected to the present, power and the power-knowledge connection than to the past. Grounded in a critique of the traditional historiography of the 19th century, these views are based on the idea that explanations of history are formed within the limits of language. While questioning the scientificity and objectivity of historiography, linguistic elements are added to historiography, followed by an aesthetic dimension. In the 20th century, Hayden White challenged the claims of coherence and unity in traditional historiography with the idea that historical discourse and the linguistic context that creates it cannot be separated, arguing that narrative is aesthetically shaped. Michel Foucault's criticism of the human sciences, his analysis of historical periods as transitions between epistemes, and his use of genealogy inspired by Nietzsche, who rejects his identity as a historian and creates an anti-historical conception of history that threatens the rules of history, are appropriated in White's own reading of Foucault. Therefore, we can think that Foucault, just like Nietzsche, assumed the identity of a poet-historian and created an understanding of "aestheticized history" and that he and White share this aestheticization as well as their criticisms of scientism and factualism. In this article, I here aim to present the results of my analysis of these parallels I observe in White and Foucault through the themes of genealogy, narrative and the "aestheticization of history." I attempt to show that White and Foucault's positions and the conception of history they develop have the potential to expose the fictional aspect of history and the ideological dimension in discourses.